My face cringed as I watched Lila burn Diego's flesh in order to close his stab wound. The sizzling noise and smell reminded me of the night the Order branded us. As much as I tried to ignore my memories of the Horror Order, I couldn't seem to shake the thoughts that coursed through my mind.

Diego's eyes snapped open suddenly and he let out an ear piercing scream. My face scrunched up at the loud sound as I felt another headache coming on. Lila quickly shushed Diego, who was beginning to sit up now. "Don't move! This thing is very finicky!" Lila ordered. I found it strange how she knew exactly what she was doing. These sort of things weren't really common knowledge, especially for everyday people living in the sixties.

"What happened?" Diego groaned.

"I saved your stupid life," Lila said with a smirk.

Diego shot her a confused look. "Were you following me?"

"Uh, hey, what about a little gratitude, knife boy?" Lila remarked. "If it wasn't for me, you'd be dead. That's twice now, by the way."

Almost immediately, Diego's head whipped up again. "Where are my clothes?" He asked Lila. "The hell happened to my clothes?"

Lila huffed, "I said don't move." She pressed the metal into Diego's wound, causing his to cry out again. "There. That's better," Lila said after Diego passed out again. I glanced away from the two of them and took a sip of my coffee.

I heard the familiar sound of Five's teleportation. He walked in with his hands in his pockets as he sighed, "Oh. He isn't dead."

"Disappointed?" Lila asked him.

"Oh, to see you? Always," Five remarked. I could tell there was some tension between the two of them but I wasn't sure why. Five obviously disliked Lila, which doesn't say much because he doesn't like a lot of other people. There were probably only a select few people who he actually tolerated, some more than others.

Personally, I didn't really have a problem with Lila. She was a very weird girl, especially for the sixties. Sometimes, I feel like she knows more than she should if she was just an everyday citizen.

"So much hostility in such a tiny package," Lila said. Five ignored her comment as he walked over to grab a cotton bandage from the coffee table. Then, he walked over to the chair I was sitting on and stood beside me. "Did you cut yourself shaving? I could teach you to shave like a big boy."

I feigned a laugh and instead took another sip of my coffee to hide the smile on my face.

Five sighed in irritation. "No, I just ran into an old family friend." He walked off again and into the kitchen, leaving Lila and me alone.

"Is he always this bitter?" Lila asked. I was a bit surprised she was talking to me. I'm not sure why though.

I shrugged nonchalantly. "Pretty much," I said honestly. "You get used to it though."

Lila chuckled at that. "I'm sure you have.. Five's Alexa," she stated with a smirk on her face. I felt my face heat up and I'm almost positive that my cheeks were glowing red.

"How do you know Diego?" I blurted, trying to change the subject. Lila laughed softly at me and sent me a toothy grin.

"We spent some time in the same psych ward," Lila answered simply.

"Oh, that's.. different," I replied. I wasn't exactly sure how to respond to that. "If you don't mind me asking, what were you in there for?"

"Being crazy, of course," Lila exclaimed as if it were obvious.

My lips formed a tight-lipped smile. "Right," I laughed awkwardly.

"Your powers are cool," Lila spoke up again. "How'd you get them?" She must have known that I wasn't one of the many lucky children born on that fateful day in October. I assumed that Diego told her a bit of my backstory, not that he even knew though. Five was the only person that I told my secrets to.

"Human experiments," I revealed. I didn't feel like getting into detail, especially with a strange woman I just met.

"Well, that's traumatizing," Lila joked. Both of us shared a soft laugh.

My eyes fell on her bright red boots for some reason. "Nice shoes," I complimented.

Lila glanced down at her own boots. "Thanks. My mom got them for me," she said.

"She must have good taste," I said with a small smile.

Lila smirked. "You have no idea." Her statement kind of threw me off, but I ignored it. Lila was sent to a psych ward after being deemed crazy, so I didn't think too in depth about her words.

After a few moments of silence between us, I stood up and left the room, phasing through the walls until I got to the kitchen, where I saw Five making coffee.

His light eyes glanced up at me. "Everything okay?"

I nodded. "Just.. Lila being Lila." Five smirked and rolled his eyes. His expression basically read, 'tell me about it.' I held out the mug of coffee that I had in my hands. It was still relatively fresh and warm. "Try this. I made it when we got back earlier."

Five took the mug out of my hand and took a sip of the coffee. He thought to himself for a moment. "It's actually good," Five admitted in surprise. "What's in it?"

I smiled, proud of my own cup of coffee for being Five approved. "It's a secret," I said lowly. Five raised his eyebrows but I wasn't about to give up my recipe just yet. "You can have the rest of it, if you'd like."

"Thanks," Five said. He hastily kissed me on the cheek, making my eyes go wide from the sudden surprise.

Before anything else was said between us, Elliot shouted from the other room. "Hey, we got one!" In the distance, there was a loud buzzing noise coming from some tech. "Hey, one of those machines you asked for is going crazy!"

I followed Five into the next room over, where we found Elliot sitting on a rolling chair in front of some machine. "Which one?" Five asked.

"It's the, uh, atmospheric radar," Elliot replied. I was lost in this conversation already.

"Good," Five spoke. He leaned in to get a better look at the green screen on the radar. The entire map had rings covering the screen, but there was one section that had another set of circles.

"I don't get it," Elliot stated. He could say that again. "What are you tracking? A hurricane? A storm front?"

"Sound waves," Five answered.

"Sound waves," Elliot repeated in fascination.

"Vanya," I realized. Five nodded in confirmation.

"Wow," Elliot breathed. He was still staring at the screen. Five grabbed my hand and pulled me away from the machine. Then, in an instant, he teleported us to the location on the radar.

We appeared to be in the middle of a field. The section we were standing on was a crater of destroyed corn. I glanced around in confusion as to why we were here, or more specifically, why Vanya was here. Five started walking forward and into the corn. Our hands intertwined as I phased both of us through the corn so we get by more easily. We walked a few steps into the depths of the field, until we came across a familiar face, who was crouched down onto the ground.

"Hi, Vanya," Five greeted his sister. Her brown, doe-like eyes glanced between the two of us in fear and confusion. I offered her a small, reassuring smile.

"Who are you?" Vanya asked. She slowly got to her feet and kept her eyes on the two of us.

"I'm your brother," Five replied. My eyebrows were furrowed in confusion. Did she not know who we were?

"I have a brother?" Vanya said unsurely.

Vanya turned towards me now. "Are you my sister?"

I chuckled softly and shook my head. "No, just an old friend. I'm Alexa."

"Look, you can either stay here and wait for the IKEA mafia to come back to kill you, or you can come with us," Five told her.

"IKEA mafia?" I repeated.

Five sighed. "They're basically Hazel and Cha-Cha just without the masks and Swedish."

I hummed in response, not really surprised by the new assassins that were trying to kill us. I was really starting to regret asking 'what's next' when I first heard about the second apocalypse.

Five grabbed onto my hand again and began to pull me away. I took that as my signal to phase us through the field again.

Vanya began to trail closely behind us. I heard her pushing corn stalks out of the way as she attempted to keep up. "Why are they trying to kill me?" She asked Five.

"'Cause you're not supposed to be here, Vanya," Five replied simply.

"In Dallas?" Vanya questioned him. She couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"No," Five sighed. "Here, in 1963."

The three of us made it back to the circle of destroyed corn. Vanya's eyes roamed the area in surprise. "Holy shit," she breathed.

Five smirked and looked around. "Yeah, pretty wild, right?" We continued to walk further into the crater. "It's good to see your powers are still intact."

"Good to see you didn't blow up the moon again," I spoke quietly to myself. Five chuckled at my remark, but Vanya didn't seem to hear.

"Let's go," Five said as we all made our way out of the corn field.

★・・・★・・・★

The waitress poured Five a cup of black coffee. As she was about to walk away, he stopped her and said, "Leave the pot." She placed the pot beside Five. "Thank you."

"Lippy little shit," she muttered as she walked away.

As Five poured more coffee into his cup, Vanya spoke up, "You gonna tell me what the hell's going on?"

"When you were a baby, you were bought by an eccentric billionaire," Five started his explanation. I didn't think he was going to start at the beginning, but since Vanya can't seem to remember anything about who she is, then it was necessary to tell her. "He raised you in an elite academy with six other siblings with extraordinary powers, but in the year 2019, in order to avoid the apocalypse, we jumped into a vortex and ended up scattered throughout the timeline in Dallas, Texas, along with the exception of Lexa, who was sent back to a version of her own past." Five paused. "Any questions?"

Vanya was quiet for a few moments. I don't even think she knew where to start when it came to asking questions. "What do you mean, 'the apocalypse'?" She asked.

"I mean the end of the world as we know it," Five replied bluntly.

"But how?" Vanya asked. She was pressing for specific details now.

Five tilted his head. "You really don't remember anything?"

"No," Vanya answered honestly. "Nothing before a month ago."

"Then, what do you remember?" He asked her. He was hesitant to reveal to her what had really happened.

Vanya hesitated as she spoke, "I landed in like, uh.. back alley. Got hit by a car. My head was ringing like crazy. I had no idea how I got there, where I came from." She kind of trailed off as she was recited everything she could remember. "What causes the apocalypse?" Vanya asked again. I bet she knew that Five was holding something back from her.

Five glanced away from Vanya. He was mentally debating on what to tell his sister. "Asteroid impact," he finally said. It might not have been completely true, but at least it wasn't a complete lie. "The big kaboom ends everything. Just like the one that got the dinosaurs, except way worse. Bad news is, it followed us here."

Vanya stared at Five in confusion. "What do you mean 'followed us'?" She asked.

Five had a distant look in his eyes. It seemed that he couldn't escape the apocalypse no matter where he went. "Eight days from now, the world ends in a nuclear doomsday. It's a different disease, but.. same result."

"That can't be right," Vanya said.

"I saw it," Five reasoned. "With my own eyes." It was upsetting that this wasn't the first time Five saw the apocalypse. I wondered about what happened in the future he saw. "You were there. We all were."

"Shit," Vanya breathed. She stood up suddenly. It was clear that she was beginning to panic. "I need to make a phone call."

"Vanya-" Five called after her but she had already gotten up and made her way to the phone on the wall. Vanya put coins into the machine and dialed a number. Five huffed and took a sip of his coffee before cringing at the taste. He slammed the cup back down on the table. For a moment, I thought the class would shatter, but surprisingly, it didn't. "God, this is awful."

He stood up abruptly and made his way towards Vanya. I quickly followed after him. Five pulled a button on the phone down and ended Vanya's call. The older woman turned towards her newfound brother with an upset expression. "What the hell?" She exclaimed.

"We don't have time for this," Five stated. I still found that to be ironic.

"That's my friend you just hung up on!" Vanya said. She tried to keep her voice down because we were in public, but she wasn't doing a great job of it.

"Listen to me," Five demanded. He grabbed ahold of Vanya's shoulders and stared her dead in the eyes. "Those people from the field are coming after us. They are never going to stop," he spoke quietly. "Do you understand me? We need to stick together. Find the others, and figure out how to stop doomsday. Whoever this person is, they can't be more important than the end of the world." Vanya glanced between Five and me. "We need to go."

Vanya sighed and eventually gave in. She followed Five and I as the three of us made our way out of the small diner.